what a blessing

[Uncle J]

Trump fined $1,000 for gag order violation in hush money case as judge warns of possible jail time

NEW YORK (AP) — The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money trial fined him $1,000 on Monday and warned of jail time for future gag order violations while jurors heard testimony for the first time about the financial reimbursements at the center of the case...

The $1,000 fine imposed Monday marks the second time since the trial began last month that Trump has been sanctioned for violating the gag order. He was fined $9,000 last week, $1,000 for each of nine violations.

“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Therefore going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” Merchan said before jurors were brought into the courtroom. Trump’s statements, the judge added, “threaten to interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.”

 

[Uncle J]

From the WaPo's live feed on the trial....

Jury hears disturbing details of Stormy Daniels’s alleged sexual encounter with Trump

Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels described having a one-night stand with Donald Trump that at times sounded like nonconsensual sex — prompting a flurry of sidebar arguments interrupting her testimony.

“There was an imbalance of power for sure. He was bigger and blocking the way, but I was not threatened,” Daniels said, describing the moment when she entered a bedroom in Trump’s hotel suite in 2006 to find him posing on the bed.

“The next thing I know, I was on the bed, somehow on the opposite of the bed.” She said her bra was still on, but they were in the missionary position.

“Do you have a recollection of feeling something unusual?” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked, before the judge stopped Daniels from answering that question.

“I was staring up at the ceiling, and I didn’t know how I got there,” Daniels said.

The account is similar to what Daniels described years earlier in her book, but the degree of detail was surprising, particularly given that Trump is not accused of any sex crimes.

Trump is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records, but the jury has now heard details of him engaged in something akin to nonconsensual sex.

Daniels said she was not drunk or under the influence of drugs, but she described feeling strange and not having a grasp on the sequence of events.

Trump’s defense lawyers were clearly upset that Daniels kept offering details and opinions about the encounter far beyond the claim of the two having a sexual encounter — particularly since the testimony about that sex came after the judge had explicitly urged the prosecutor not to go into a lot of details in front of the jury.

 

[Uncle J]

Stormy Daniels tells jury that she had unwanted sex with Trump, who said they were ‘fantastic together’

Stormy Daniels told a Manhattan jury Tuesday that she did not want to have sex with Donald Trump in his Lake Tahoe hotel room in 2006 but did not resist, and that afterward Trump suggested they reunite because they were “fantastic together.”

In the stunning testimony, the adult-film actress said she was so rattled by the event that while she was sitting on Trump’s hotel bed afterward, her hands were shaking and she couldn’t pull herself together.

She said that they had previously discussed his wife, Melania, but that he told her that they slept in separate rooms.

“My hands were shaking so hard I was having a hard time getting dressed,” Daniels testified to a captivated jury.

Trump suggested that they get back together for future encounters, Daniels testified. “Oh, it was great,” Trump said, according to Daniels. “Let’s get together again, honey bunch. We were great together.”

Daniels, who has discussed outside of the courtroom having been sexually abused as a child, said she was embarrassed by the fact that she allowed the sexual interaction to go forward. “I felt ashamed that I didn’t stop it and I didn’t say no,” she said.